In July, Illegal Alien Francisco Sanchez, a 45-year-old repeat drug offender who released from jail on April 15 despite a request from ICE to turn him over, shot and killed Kathryn Steinle, who was walking on the San Francisco pier with her dad. Sanchez wasn’t turned over because San Francisco is a sanctuary city. The problem is much larger than one city.

Judicial Watch is reporting a new study (embedded below) reveals that the approximately 340 sanctuary cities nationwide (see map above) released thousands of criminal illegal aliens from jail rather than turn them over to federal authorities for deportation. The study covered a nine month period, and in aggregate the cities released about 1,000 criminal illegal aliens per month released into an unsuspecting public.

According to an updated report prepared by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for Congress, between January 1 and September 30, 2014, local sanctuaries released 9,295 alien offenders that ICE was seeking to deport. More than 600 people were released at least twice.

Out of these, 5,947 of the criminal aliens (62 percent) had significant prior criminal histories or other public safety concerns even before the arrest that led to a detainer. Fifty-eight percent of those with a prior history of concern had prior felony charges or convictions; 37 percent had serious prior misdemeanor charges, and 5 percent had multiple prior misdemeanors.

An alarming number — 2,320 — of the total number of released offenders were subsequently arrested within the time period studied for new crimes after they were released by the sanctuaries.

As Judicial Watch points out the stats above proves “that legislation to crack down on jurisdictions that obstruct enforcement of federal immigration law is long overdue.”

There is a bill in the Senate now, and if it passes:

…federal funding will be withheld from sanctuary states or cities that fail to comply with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued detainer requests for illegal aliens. The money would be redirected to states and localities that follow the law. “There is absolutely no reason that any U.S. city should be allowed to ignore our nation’s immigration laws and provide a safe harbor for illegal immigrants,” said Louisiana Senator David Vitter, in a statement introducing the measure this month. Illegal immigrants have committed other murders and terrible acts of violence across the U.S. since the San Francisco incident that drew national attention, Vitter said.

And once the Illegal Aliens are released, ICE has trouble finding them so they can protect American citizens, “according to records obtained for the study. As of last year, 6,460 (69%) were still at large. Of those still at large, 1,377 (20%) had another criminal arrest following the one that resulted in the original ICE detainer.”

This is why a violent criminal, Francisco Javier Chavez, is on the loose. In August 2015 he was arrested for beating his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter and, despite an extensive criminal record that includes felony drug and drunk-driving convictions, a California sheriff’s department ignored an ICE detainer and released him.

California is the biggest offender when it comes to blowing off federal orders to hand over criminal illegal aliens, according to ICE records cited in the study. A chart offers a breakdown of the cities and counties that release the largest amount of criminal aliens identified by the feds for removal. Santa Clara County takes the prize with 1,349 for 2014 followed by Los Angeles and Alameda counties with 572 each. Miami Dade County in south Florida came in fourth with 491. “We need to send a loud and clear message to any sanctuary cities that their dangerous policies are not acceptable,” Senator Vitter said.

Somehow I am not surprised that the people’s republic of California releases more criminals than any other state in the union.

The claim that somehow the desire to seal and control America’s borders originates from some sort of anti-Latino bias. Notice the stats released and used in this report does not include country of origin. The U.S. needs to control who comes into the country to save American citizens from possible crimes from more people like the 9+K released a nine-month period by sanctuary cities.